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Mezuzah

Materials and form infuse the mezuzah with textural and conceptual intricacy, inverting the traditional presentation of the mezuzah scroll to postulate on the notion of demystifying religion. Rather than concealed within the mezuzah, the scrolls are exposed in glass tubes. The lettering faces outward instead of inward, rendering it accessible, revealing the hand-written beauty of the sacred text and subverting the habitual perception of the impenetrable mezuzah.

In the most recent design, a single slab of 300-year-old American Black Walnut (a symbol of grounding and inner stability) was hand cut into 27 mezuzot. Sacred mezuzah scrolls purchased in Jerusalem were placed inside glass tubes and inserted into the wood. These relationships—between wood and glass; free form and precision; the opaque and the transparent—create a representational discourse on the premise of religion as inscrutable or paradoxical.

The random size and shape of each mezuzah imbue them with an organic, individual identity, though they retain their collective origin both as a wood slab and as fragments of the walnut tree. As they are given to clients, the individual mezuzot disperse on their mission to protect a home and its inhabitants while evoking the intertwined collectivity of nature and humanity.